The Ramblers (12 page)

“How's the registry looking?” Bitsy asks. “Tell me at least one thing is going smoothly.”

Sally smiles, turns to Smith. “Mom's all bent out of shape because she was so proud of herself for using her French and taking over the table linens from the wedding planner and they came in wrong. Also, a few people have replied saying they are bringing uninvited plus-ones. I told her I don't give a shit, but she's got a nasty little bee in her bonnet.”

“It's just that the French chickadee at the linens company is such a ne'er-do-well. We had the linens shipped from Paris, and they came in weeks ago. I just opened them and they're all wrong. For the love of God, they're
rose
. We ordered
blush
. And this little fluffer's bending my ear telling me that she actually prefers rose to blush—some nonsense about a new color trend. And then I'm sitting there, ostensibly on hold, but I can hear her, on her other phone, beating her gums in French for
five solid minutes about this wretched cheapskate first date she's been on. I really don't understand your generation, girls. All those castles in the air. Tell me, whatever happened to privacy? Whatever happened to not airing dirty laundry in public? Whatever happened to maintaining some modicum of propriety?”

Smith nods, but her mind is miles away.

“Are you okay?” Sally says, grabbing Smith's arm.

“Not really. I found out this morning that Asad and his wife are having a baby.”

She looks up at her mother and sister, waits for a reaction, some sympathy. Sally appears genuinely shaken, but a smile spreads over Bitsy's face. A fucking
smile
.

“Whaaat? I apologize if news of a
baby
makes me happy, dear,” Bitsy says in a furious whisper.

“Are you kidding me, Mom? He was the love of my life and he dumps me with no explanation and I'm supposed to be tickled that he's about to become a father? Really?”

“Look, sweets, I know you've been having a rotten time, but you and I both know very well that he wasn't the love of your life. You took up with him to piss Daddy off. And it worked. You made your point, but don't pretend this fellow was something he wasn't. You're better than that.”

“Am I?” Smith says, fixing her mother with a glare.

“Yes, you are. Look, I can't do this right now. I'm going to head home and fix a stiff one and take another stab at that darned seating chart. You girls should go have a cocktail and catch up. It'll be nice; you can commiserate about how insensitive your well-meaning mother is,” Bitsy says, kissing both girls on the cheek, pointing to the restaurant.

“I'm game,” Sally says, shrugging.

“Sure,” Smith says, eyeing the restaurant. It's the last place in the world she wants to go.

Sally threads her arm through Smith's and leans on her shoulder, just like they used to do as girls walking down the sidewalks of their neighborhood. It's a small thing, and a familiar one too, and Smith feels it,
it,
that ineffable closeness that's evolved over time. The physical proximity to her sister is comforting and she finds herself longing for simpler times. Sally smells, as she always has, like lemon and sugar.

“What do you mean, you knew?”

B
ottled or tap?” the waiter asks. Smith and Sally sit in the banquette by the window, giving Smith a sweeping view of Central Park.

“Fizzy water, please,” Sally answers for them with her near-childish ebullience. In moments like this, it amazes Smith that Sally is an actual doctor. That she wears the white coat and sees patients.

“Good old fizzy water. I love that you still call it that,” Smith says.

“A relic. I've held on to a few of them. ‘Borella' is so much better than ‘umbrella.' Yes, I'll read a maz-agine during my pedicure. Sure, I'll have a sprinkling of Parsabom on my penne. Even Briggs has begun to dip into the sacred Smith-Sally-Bitsy fictionary. It's pretty sweet.”

“Your hair looks good,” Smith says. “I like the color. It will photograph well. And the fringe of bangs suits you.”

“Thanks,” Sally says. “I know it's terribly clichéd to say this, but I want to look like myself, but the best version of myself. Does that make any sense?”

“Perfect sense,” Smith says, but she's barely listening. It's hard to focus. She fiddles with her phone, forwards her life coach her e-mail exchange with Asad so they can talk about it later. “Sorry, just had to do one quick thing. I'm all yours.”

Sally flashes a nervous smile. “Do you remember that night when Mom and Dad went out and I convinced you that we should cut our hair? Remember how we took the scissors into the bathroom and locked the door and that poor sitter—what was her name? Cristin? Crystal?—didn't have a clue and we cut each other's hair short and tried to curl it to look like Betty Boop? How hilarious was that?”

Smith laughs. She remembers the scene differently, as far less than hilarious. She can see them now, her parents coming through the front door after one of their countless charity events. Her father stumbling and mumbling, lubricated with alcohol, her mother sharp as ever. When Bitsy saw the girls, sheepish and freshly shorn, and the quaking sitter in the background, horror filled her eyes. And then Thatcher, catching on to the transgression, flipped in an instant from affable bow-tied banker to aggressive taskmaster.
What have you girls done? Was this your idea, Smith?

“And what was our punishment?” Sally says. “An appointment at the salon at the Waldorf with her guy to remedy the situation. Unduly harsh.”

Smith looks around the restaurant and suddenly remembers why she's been avoiding it. Memories fire at her, but her sister says something.

“I knew,” Sally says quietly, looking down.

“Knew about what?” Smith says, staring at her sister.

“About Asad and the baby.”

Smith feels her entire body stiffening. Looks down at her lap, back up at her sister, who's visibly troubled. What the fuck?

“What do you mean, you knew?”

“Smith, calm down,” Sally says in a whisper. “You know very well that Asad and I have tons of friends in common from med school. I heard a month or so ago and I didn't see what the point was in telling you. You're working so hard to move on, Smith. Why would I tell you this and set you back? You're doing so well.”

“I'm doing so well?
This
is doing so well?” she says, aware of the inappropriate decibel level of her voice. “I'm coming apart at the seams, Sally. I went on a bender with a guy I barely know last night. I'm hungover as shit and this restaurant is about to make me sob because the last time I was here was with him and I'm doing so well? And who the hell are you to decide what I should know, Sally? I know you are the younger and wiser one, but don't you think I might like to know that the man I came very close to marrying is having a baby with someone else? Shit, Sally, what is this? I loved him. I was converting to
Islam
for him. He and I were talking about kids and now you're all carrying on like it was
nothing,
like what we had was a figment of my imagination.”

“
Smith,
” Sally says, dragging out the one syllable of her name. “
Smiiiithhhh.
I know you loved him. I know how hard the breakup was, but I also felt that it would be incredibly hard for you to hear this piece of news. You must see that it was a tough call for me. That I was trying to protect you.”

“I don't need you to protect me,” Smith says, wondering if this is true. Maybe her sister is right, her sister is always right, sunny Sally who has always gotten it. Maybe this is exactly what she needs, someone to protect her, a paternalistic shield from this unfurling nightmare. She feels sick. She sips her water but can barely swallow. “I can't believe you didn't tell me. We used to tell each other
everything
.”

A tear snakes down Smith's cheek, but she doesn't look away. Instead she looks right at Sally. And here it is, a staring contest like old times. They used to sit on their twin beds, cross-legged, hair back in
ponytails, all business, and do this very thing. They'd keep it up for a long while, but invariably it was Smith who looked away first. Sally was better, faster, more determined.

“Speaking of which, why didn't you tell me about this guy? Mom says he might come to the wedding?”

“Is that a problem?” Smith says, studying her sister's face for judgment.

“Don't be silly,” Sally says sweetly. “I want you to have a date. Who is he? Do you like him?”

“I think I do, but then again I have no idea what's up and what's down. I'm not sure it matters if I like him because he hasn't called and I doubt he will and it's all just fitting. I feel
sick
.”

“I'm sorry,” Sally says. “I didn't mean for this to be this way. Especially this week.”

Especially this week? What does that mean?

“Me too,” Smith says, pushing her chair away from the table. “I'm really not feeling well. I think I'm just going to go. I have to pick up some things for your out-of-town bags.”

“Let me come with you?” Sally says.

“No,” Smith says. “I need to be alone right now.” Her hands shake as she pulls out her wallet and fishes a twenty from the billfold. She attempts to flatten it on the table under her palm, but the wrinkles remain. She leaves it on the table and slips through the front door, sneaks through the elevator doors that are closing.

Outside, it's cold. The streets swarm with people and cars. She heads east to Lexington Avenue, to the Container Store. Before entering, she admires the place as she always does, her big glass haven, where he asked her to marry him.

She didn't expect anything, not that night. She met him after a long day of surgery in front of New York Hospital, where he worked. He wore his scrubs. It was a breezy night and they walked west. He led her down Lexington. It was late and the store was closed, but Smith noticed the flicker of candles inside. Asad walked to the entrance and motioned
to a guard who waited inside. When the guard unlocked the glass front door, Smith knew. He proposed in the kitchen aisle, and per Asad's very particular instructions, after she said yes, the guard played Peter Gabriel's “In Your Eyes” from an old-school boom box just as John Cusack did in
Say Anything,
which was her favorite movie, quickly his too. The ring, the one they'd spotted at Bergdorf's just weeks before, fit perfectly, and she stared at it through tears as he changed out of his scrubs in the men's room. Asad thanked the guard and escorted Smith to Daniel, a famous French restaurant, where a champagne-soaked seven-course tasting meal awaited them. It was, without question, the best night of her life.

When Smith enters the store, the memories of her engagement night fill her. It's the first time she's been back here since the breakup. She's had items shipped or messengered, but these weren't options this time. She walks to the customer service desk, aware of her heightened anxiety.

“I'm picking up an order for Anderson,” she says to the clerk, who then disappears into the back. The clerk, a heavyset, kind-faced woman named Dawn, returns empty-handed.

“I'm sorry, I have nothing back there for you. Could it possibly be under another name?”

Another name. For a split second, she thinks,
Rahman
. Smith Rahman. Almost. Shit, she needs to get a grip.

“No, it's Anderson. A-N-D-E-R-S-O-N. I called last week. It's one hundred translucent take-out containers. The polyethylene ones, BPA-free? I can find the product number on my phone if that would be helpful.”

“No, I know what you're talking about. Let me look it up on the computer and see if we have some of those in stock here in the store,” she says, tapping away at the keyboard, squinting at the monitor, shaking her head. “No, it looks like we have only eighteen. Would you like those?”

“Dawn, I'm sorry, but I ordered these items and I
need
them today
and I'm not leaving the store without them, so you better come up with them, okay?”

The woman looks up from the computer, something like fear in her eyes. “Ma'am, it's showing that we have eighteen in stock upstairs if you'd like those. I can run and get them for you.”

Smith feels her pulse quickening. “I do not fucking want eighteen. I want
one hundred.
Like I ordered. I need to fill these boxes with
jelly beans,
Dawn, for my sister's wedding, which is
this
weekend, and it will take me some
time
to fill these and I
need
them now. Do you realize how often I shop at this store, Dawn? How many clients I send here? Can I talk to your manager about this?”

Smith barely recognizes herself in this moment. This isn't who she is; she's kind and patient, slow to anger, but here she is being one of those abominable people who lash out. She's ashamed, but also notes that it feels strangely good to be standing her ground after being so acquiescent all the fucking time with her parents and her sister and her clients.

And yet she feels for poor, visibly shaken Dawn, Dawn who looks like she might cry, Dawn who nods and disappears. Smith knows very well that this is not about Dawn and missing plastic containers.

A man comes out soon after, clutching a stacked tower of take-out containers, which he hands over the counter. “Ms. Anderson, I'm so sorry about the mix-up with the order. I would like you to take these today, and we will have the rest shipped to you by Wednesday at the latest
all free of charge
. I know you are a good customer of the store and I apologize for this.”

Smith takes the containers, containers that cruelly remind her of the Chinese food she scarfed last night; hugs the tower to her chest; and feels her eyes pooling with tears. “Thank you,” she says. “I'm so sorry. Truly sorry. Wednesday will be just fine.”

Back on the street, tears begin to roll down her cheeks as she heads for home. Poor Dawn. What was Smith thinking yelling at the unsuspecting woman like that? She was just doing her job.

As she walks, she pulls out her phone and runs her fingers along the shattered screen. She types in her password and begins going down the rabbit hole, checking everything—her calendar and her e-mail. Her Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. She looks up Tate and sees that he's spent the day exploring Battery Park City. On his Instagram feed is a photo of an old man with a cane and a mother pushing a double stroller. He also took a black and white photograph of a graffiti-laden wall. She remembers more from last night. Snippets of endearing booze-soaked wisdom.
Maybe it's clichéd, yes, it most definitely is, but I think the ugly and hard things are sometimes the most enthralling.

The social media anesthetic is swift in taking hold; her mind grows blurry and numb. She nearly walks straight into oncoming traffic.

She checks everything again and again, to fill the empty space that's starting to expand within her, a deep, throttling loneliness. There's nothing from Tate. Not a thing. Two days ago she was fine with not having a date to the wedding, it didn't faze her, but now she dreads the idea of going alone. And she doesn't just want to go with anyone. She wants to go with
him
.

Fuck.

She walks on. At Central Park South, she stops for some reason and finds herself staring at the carriage horses lined up to take tourists through Central Park. They're dolled up, these immense and gorgeous animals, festooned with foolish jewel-toned feathers. She read an article once about these horses, about how poorly they are treated, and yet it's an industry that booms because people are blind to the truth and the misery, forking over bundles of cash and climbing on, settling into the clichéd fairy-tale carriage, eager for a tour of a heralded place that's shiny and new, a small adventure, but at what expense?

These horses break her heart.

Their eyes are dark and scared and sad. They wait because it's all they can do.